


State of Independence.

by nothingbutfic



Series: The Co-Opted Life. [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Ghosts, M/M, twist - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:51:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5063650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingbutfic/pseuds/nothingbutfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Percy Weasley discovers, ghosts come back broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	State of Independence.

**Author's Note:**

> A warning: 16,000 words long, it is rated NC-17 for a reason, and yes, is set after Goblet of Fire. Probably AU for Books Five through Seven as a result. (But /is/ it?)
> 
> The inspirations that went into the fic are diverse; songs including Garbage's 'Bleed Like Me', The Pretender's 'Human' and 'State of Independence', and books like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' Consider it my magical fantasy, if you will.

It is 2pm on a Saturday afternoon when Percy Weasley first sees the ghost of Cedric Diggory. He is sitting in the cramped pigeonhole that is laughably considered his office staring at the piece of paper that rests against the polished wood. He does not complain about the space, nor would he – Percy knows that manners are a well respected part of the political game that has to be played, and he is determined to play it well.  
  
His resignation. Strange, that it would come to this. Strange and hopeless, but then a boy has died and someone was going to be held responsible, and it probably will be Percy.  
  
Cedric was barely cold in his grave, and the political knives are already sharpening. The details of Cedric’s death weren’t important; the fact of his death is. No-one likes a fatality, especially in the wizarding world when ghosts, time turners and all sorts of things made it easy to find out exactly where you had gone wrong, exactly what you had lost. If he was unlucky, the short and eventful career of Percy Weasley would be used as training material for Ministry inductees, a step-by-step series of lessons in what to avoid.  
  
If he was  _particularly_  unlucky, he would be made to teach it.  
  
The letter is crisp and to the point. It has taken him some wrangling and a lot of drafts, but Percy has put down on paper what needed to be said. It is all of course a bunch of lies, but that hasn’t ever stopped anyone else in the Ministry and he might as well get his hands dirty on his way out. In the letter, he apologised profusely, made repeated mentions to his regret, guilt and/or sorrow at the tragic death of such a talented young man, and accepted all responsibility. It offends his sensibilities that he does so – that he has to do to – but Amos Diggory wanted someone to blame, and Percy didn’t blame him for that. After all, Cedric was easy going, charming and well liked; three things Percy had never been at school, so it made sense people would miss him and wouldn’t miss Percy at all.  
  
Since the death, Percy had barely slept. Not so much out of grief, but out of worry. He had come here, to his office, every day, trying to find a way out of the political dead end he’d gotten himself into, but decided it was better to leave than to be forced out, and this was the result.  
  
“Falling on your sword, eh, Percy?” The voice breaks into his reverie, and Percy’s head snaps up, quickly focussing on the slightly glowing presence. His proximity makes Percy rock a little back in his seat; too close for comfort; too close at all. He could have recognised that voice anywhere, especially as its owner happens to be dead.  
  
In death, Cedric is everything he’d been in life; messy brown hair cut like a pageboy, a nose that was a little too stubby, eyes that were a little too big, and a jaw too strong and chin too prominent to really go with the rest. Percy gazes for a few moments, almost enraptured. It is hardly his first experience with a ghost: Hogwarts had seen to that, but this is the first time he’s seen a ghost he knew, and it is astonishing how all the little details are still there. Cedric doesn’t look any different from his most recent photograph; he even still has a pimple on the side of one nose, and Percy is slightly disappointed. He’d always hoped that death was more epic an adventure, more grand a place, and as such wouldn’t allow unsightly blemishes to spoil one’s afterlife as they had one’s life.  
  
Still, the pimple helps. It reduces Cedric’s features to some kind of perspective; turned his beauty into simple humanity, rather than something so flawless it was almost disgusting to see. Cedric always had been a pretty boy, as Percy judged such things, and that still held true.  
  
There is barely enough room for the desk, a set of bookshelves and the door, which probably explains why Cedric seems to be halfway  _through_  the desk, and therefore Percy is very close to him indeed. If he  _were_  alive, Percy would be able to smell his breath; as he’s not, Percy can’t. It’s a little disconcerting.  
  
“I tried falling on my sword,” Cedric murmurs, sounding quiet and sad and regretful, all things he never had in life. He’d always been a positive student, he of the hard work ethic and wry sense of humour, one of those inestimable Hufflepuffs who always kept their chin up and had a good word about anything. It seems that Cedric Diggory does not have a good word about death, and if  _he_  does not have a good word about it, death scarcely bears thinking about.  
  
“What happened?” Percy asks him, because it seems like the polite thing to do.  
  
“It hurt,” Cedric tells him, bluntly, and then he disappears.  
  
Percy stares down at the piece of paper on his desk, and promptly tears it up.  
  
*  
  
A month later, and it seems that his gamble has paid off. Horribly daring, horribly courageous, horribly stubborn and momentous and Gryffindor of him, and Percy is oddly surprised by his own capacity for such bravery. He has stuck things out; ridden out the storm, sailed through the…bad weather, and honestly, one can have too many metaphors. But he has been rewarded: with a grander title, a bigger office (complete with potted plant, curled up and wilting in the corner) and what seems like a mountain of additional paperwork. He doesn’t mind it, and yet he does. Paperwork is after all, easier than people. Boxes must be ticked, forms completed, questions answered; there is always an end in sight and easily identifiable outcomes.    
  
Right now, he struggles against the tide, filling out incident reports, rewriting memoranda in triplicate, and working at that most important of tasks: getting his story straight.  
  
It was something his father has never mastered, but Percy already has high hopes of surpassing him in that and every other category. After all, it was not his fault, could not be his fault that the Triwizard Tournament had come to such a horrific and ignominious end. He had been given a lot of responsibility by the absent Mr. Crouch, that was true, and had he not followed all those orders to the letter? Perhaps he should have been more careful, perhaps he should have been more cautious, but he was diligent and hard working and true to the cause, and never once bothered to find out exactly what that cause was. All in all, he did nothing but exemplify classic Ministry policy.  
  
Dependable, reliable and never asked too many questions, those were all his hallmarks. They showed he was a good subordinate, and even better, a good administrator. He could not be faulted on his capacity to perform, he notes in his report, and remarks that surely that ability had seen him in good stead, or he wouldn’t have been rewarded with his most recent promotion, the one that came directly from the Minister himself. Ipso facto; the present proves his past, and the strong (and not so subtle) assertion is that if anyone seriously has a problem with his conduct, they can question Cornelius Fudge himself.  
  
That is possibly coming on a bit strong, he thinks to himself, and erases it with a flick of his quill and a muttered word. All they need to recognise is that Percy  _was_  protected; the mere reference to his patron is enough, and then he will not be Percy Weasley, Arthur’s son, but Percy Weasley, junior assistant to the Minister himself, and let them deal with that. If he could, he would ram it down their collective craws with every further request they have for information and make them  _choke_  on it, every underhand implication of malfeasance and incompetence and out and out stupidity that they could insinuate.  
  
Percy doesn’t need to doubt himself; he has friends in high places, friends who aren’t his father, and that is enough. He is beyond doubt, beyond fear, beyond anything but the rosy glow of his own confirmation, and for all that what happened was a tragedy and a mistake, never again to be repeated, he can certainly not be blamed for any of it.  
  
Therefore it comes as a surprise when he signs off the last memorandum for the day, tucks the last report away in its folder (there would be more, there would always be more, the Minister had told him how certain unspecified parties in the wizarding world would use accusations and vile insinuations to bring shame upon his government) and glances up to see the shadowy grey form of Cedric Diggory looking at him from across his desk.  
  
“Why did you let me die, Percy?” Cedric asks, again tinged by that simple regret. “I had so much still to do.”  
  
“But I didn’t,” Percy tells him, shocked and eager and a little afraid. “I didn’t let you die. It wasn’t my fault.” He pushes himself back from the desk, almost stuttering his response, and promptly leans back so hard he tips the chair back when the shade looms large through the desk. “I, I, I, I-”  
  
There is a crash as the chair collides with the bookshelf that rests against the wall, but Percy is already out of it, already moving, because he knows something about making himself a harder target, and fear is always a good instinctual response, especially where his instincts are concerned. He crouches behind the desk for what seems like an eternity, he cannot shake the profoundly irrational instinct that he could be hurt, and worse, that he deserves it. Logically, he knows that ghosts cannot not hurt him, and that Cedric would never harm him – Diggory had never been one to use his fists, not for him the crude brutality of a Flint or a Davies – but logic has very little to do with fear.  
  
Nonsense, he tells himself, he did nothing wrong. He knows this, and so must any passing spirit. He forces himself up from behind the desk, taking especial care to make sure he doesn’t void his bowels in the process. There is, of course, nothing there.  
  
Cedric has said his piece and gone; Percy is left to think. His own company is a bit too barren; all it does is leave him likely to search and come up with answers he’d rather not have. There must be someone he can occupy himself with, for all that he has precious few friends, and then it hits him – there is perhaps one person as lonely as himself.  
  
*  
  
“Why’d you want to see me, Perce?” asks Oliver Wood, fiddling with his napkin, and he doesn’t look at Percy across the table of the small bistro. Percy represses the impulse to take the napkin from him so he won’t play with it, and isn’t sure if it comes from his mother. It’s not exactly something upon which he wishes to dwell. The fact Oliver isn’t looking at him - that Oliver, Oliver who was good and simple and stubborn and brave refuses to acknowledge him - hurts more than Percy thought it would, and the sting of it makes him angry.  
  
“Because I wanted to ask your opinion on something,” Percy informs him waspishly. He waves the waiter away: he has no appetite, not now, and Oliver doesn’t seem to either, merely ordering a coffee. Besides, privacy is important; Percy doesn’t want to be seen as a fool or deluded by some passing servitor. They sit there in silence for a few minutes, both looking at the street as it winds past them, both looking at different perspectives, and Percy finds that what he meant to say is not so easily uttered. He wraps his robes around himself a little tighter and buries his hands in the folds - it is quite chilly for August.    
  
In due course, the waiter returns and deposits a steaming mug of something on the table with a slight clatter, all froth, foam and powdered chocolate from what Percy can see. He makes a note to learn more about coffee, so he can be properly social at all the Ministry dos, and looks at it down over the top of his spectacles, as if he could show a heated beverage his abject disapproval. “I see you still live on caffeine,” he remarks when the waiter finally departs with a last glance at Oliver, a glance Percy doesn’t approve of. It isn’t that he couldn’t appreciate Oliver’s looks himself - or hadn’t, all things and ex-girlfriends aside - but there were some things that were simply not done, and acting like a little tart over one of your customers is one of them. Percy was not jealous in any way shape or form thank you very much; however nice he looked, Percy could not abide someone who’d abandoned any hope of academic achievement in order to lob a ball around a field.  
  
Oliver manages a small smile and stirs his whateveritis, shrugging, and the shrugging seems tired, strained, as is his smile. “Got to keep on top of the game,” he says, hollowly, and Percy feels a sudden pang for the single minded puppy of a boy he’d gone to school with.  
  
“I notice you’re still with Puddlemere,” Percy tells him, wishing his hands had something to do besides lie there on his lap - he wants to fidget, and so, does not.  
  
There is that tired, empty smile again, and Oliver lets his spoon rest on the saucer with a clink. “Yeah. Reserve Keeper for the season.”  
  
“You should be first string,” Percy finds himself saying, and it is worth it for the way Oliver’s smile gets a little more real, and the lines crease around his eyes.  
  
“Thanks. Really. We’ll see,” he shrugs in a way that Percy understands all too well. “What did you want to talk to me about?”  
  
“I keep seeing…Cedric,” Percy tells him, and looked away over Oliver’s shoulder as he takes a sip of his tea.  
  
“You’ve seen Cedric?” Oliver is on his words like a…Keeper against the Quaffle really, hand already pushing his chair back, leaning over the table like the added height gave him some kind of power, the ability to get the answers out he wanted, and the desire to know burns bright in his face.  
  
Of  _course_  Oliver misses Cedric, Percy thinks. They were the same kind of person, the same ambition, the same sense of care and steadfastness and stubborn daring. Oliver’s own ache touches something in him – doesn’t he care a boy is dead? Doesn’t he think that anyone would miss him, if he is the next solider down? But he does care about Cedric, and he thinks that no-one would care about him, were he to fall so far. He knows this because he wouldn’t care himself.  
  
“Just his ghost,” Percy replies despite himself, already uncertain and sounding weak because of it. “I think. Father always used to talk about Muggle psychology-” he pronounces the word like it was a foreign disease, and maybe it was, he has no idea “-and how they sometimes saw and felt things that weren’t there. Out of guilt, you know.”  
  
“Hmm,” Oliver replies, and sinks back into his chair with the lazy grace of someone who actually has physical co-ordination. “Well, you  _were_  partially responsible,” he says carelessly, and shrugs, not giving a damn of what his words mean to Percy.  
  
“I was not!” Percy retorts, high and sharp and he too could rise very quickly out of his chair. Even if he doesn’t have Oliver’s bulk, he  _is_  tall, and he  _can_ tower. “I did everything I was expected to, followed all my orders.”  
  
“Yes, you did,” Oliver tells him, brown eyes tinged with faint contempt, and throws his crumpled napkin onto the table as he rises. “You did everything to the letter, and a boy  _died_ , Perce.   _Cedric_  died, and the Ministry didn’t save him. All your forms were probably completed on time and in triplicate but tell that to the Diggorys, why don’t you?”  
  
Percy stands there, feeling his face grow as red and heated as his hair, and can’t even summon a vague attempt at a comeback. All his years of education, to be bested in word and thought by someone who thinks that the pinnacle of human society is to be found zooming about on a broomstick for fun. Utterly intolerable.  
  
“Thanks for the drink, Percy,” Oliver states, flatly. “Thanks for the chat.” He tosses some coins on the table from his pocket, which just makes it worse, and strides off without another word, shoulders square and set.  
  
“Blast,” Percy mutters, and sits down stiffly to finish his tea. He isn’t about to have his afternoon completely spoiled by that oaf, and even if that oaf is possibly his best friend, well, he just needs a better class of friends.  
  
“Trouble in paradise?” asks a voice just to the left of his ear, and Percy tells Cedric Diggory where he can shove it, quite frankly. There’s a soft chuckle in response, and Percy can almost picture the smirk on his face – the one where he looks like he wants to burst out laughing, but doesn’t want to offend.  
  
“Oliver is Oliver…” he replies, and stirs his spoon in his tea, despite the fact it doesn’t need it.  
  
“…is Oliver?” Cedric finishes for him, and Percy just nods.  
  
“Not exactly Penny, is he?”  
  
“Not exactly a Ravenclaw, no.” Percy glances after Oliver, watching as the wind whips his cloak about. “He doesn’t  _have_  to be Reserve Keeper, you know,” he tells Cedric. “But no, Oliver insists on fighting with the coach.” He takes in a deep breath, and exhales, sounding quite put out. “If only he wasn’t so… _Oliver_  sometimes. I despair for that boy.”  
  
He drains his cup, and decides that there is at least one place he can turn to for help and support. His mother would never hold with anyone who said he was to blame, and as for his father, well. He can deal with his father, especially in light of his new promotion. They are equals now, or as good as, and Percy will not hear himself damned by the usual faint praise that had followed him throughout childhood.  
  
Suffice to say, dinner does not go as planned.  
  
*  
  
Two months later, and nothing much has changed beyond his surroundings. He is not talking to his family, not talking to Oliver, not talking to anyone much in particular save for the Minister and his staff – and some of them are being pointedly petty around him, which Percy chalks up to simple jealousy and quite probably the fact they considered him Arthur Weasley’s son and nothing more. But then, he  _is_  free, he  _is_  successful, he  _is_  gainfully employed and always will be (take that Fred and George), his position is something that doesn’t quite make one’s nose wrinkle in disgust (take that, Charlie, you itinerant suitcase maker), and he’s never been incredibly social anyway, so it isn’t as if the lack of conversation is doing him any great damage.  
  
Every night he sorts through his paperwork on the (small) chair that sits squat in the (small) lounge room in the (small) flat overhanging an apothecary in Diagon Alley. He tries to ignore the smell of saltpetre that wafts in from below, or the fact said flat is roughly the same size as a shoebox, or that some of the blinds refuse to lower, or that the wallpaper is peeling, or that the kitchen is cramped, the bathroom barely enough room for one, and the bed too short and too hard. But then, Percy reflects, the privation probably does him good, or at least, it sounds like a reasonable justification, and Percy prided himself on being so very reasonable.  
  
But upon doing his books one night, Percy has discovered that his new post, despite the prestige of the position and all the associated authority (“why yes, Miss, the Minister does depend upon my counsel in said matters”), is actually somewhat lacking in appropriate remuneration – to put it simply, the pay is utter pants and most people seem more interested in getting the ear of the Minister himself than Percy’s own, or failing him, Lucius Malfoy, who always seems to be in the Minister’s office anyway.  
  
Not that Percy could complain, of course. Not that he would complain; he is willing, reliable, able, dependable and loyal to a fault, and with a sinking feeling he is beginning to recognise exactly why most people discount Hufflepuffs as a matter of course.  
  
“You forgot to carry the one,” Cedric says, looking over his shoulder one night, and Percy doesn’t even bother to yelp: he's used to him by now. Besides, it’s more agreeable company than he’s had in a year.  
  
“Hmm. I did,” he recognises, and reaches for a fresh piece of parchment to start the column of sums again. It’s the sort of waste his mother would deplore; but he’s not his mother’s son any more and he has to prove it. Someone of his status has earned a few idiosyncrasies here and there; and even if he has no money, he, like everyone else who wishes to be rich, should probably act like he is. “You must get very tired of watching me attempt to work out my finances.”  
  
“That wasn’t very subtle, Percy,” Cedric chides, and seems amused. Percy can picture him standing behind his seat, arms folded and smile small, all faint and grey and very, very dead. He doesn’t need to turn around to see it; he doesn’t want to.  
  
“I’m not a very subtle person,” he retorts acidly, and manages to carry the one this time.  
  
“I’ve noticed,” Cedric tells him, crossing around to face him. Percy isn’t entirely sure why he bothered, if he can just float through anything he wants. “You need to get out more.”  
  
“My opportunities for recreation are somewhat limited.”  
  
“Yes, all that wanking over Oliver must get repetitive after a while.”  
  
Percy swallows and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath before he trusts himself to reply. “Do I have no privacy whatsoever from you?”  
  
“Not really. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Why me?” Percy asks him, and took up his quill again.  
  
“Who else would listen?” says Cedric, simply. “Come on,” he adds, after a pause. “Let’s go fly.”  
  
“But I don’t fly,” Percy looks up at him, confused. “I’ve never been able to fly well. All my brothers despaired.”  
  
“You will.” Cedric promises, and that grin is so broad and so sure and so charming that Percy forgets for a moment that Cedric isn’t alive.  
  
*  
  
The wind whips through his hair and over his robes, and Percy can’t help letting out a short howl of jubilation, pumping the air with a fist. The other hand is careful and steady on his broom, and just to prove what it can do, he loop-de-loops in the night sky above Wembley Stadium.  
  
“I never realised it could be so much fun!” he cries out to someone who can’t be seen, and the spirit controlling his body for the moment banks and turns around for another spin. He knows Cedric is smiling; he can feel him in the back of his mind, poring over sense and memory and thought. It’s a bit voyeuristic, perhaps, but Percy can’t exactly say no to him, not when the poor chap is dead and buried and the only joy he can take from the world is in flying Percy Weasley round on a borrowed broomstick and savouring the taste of a body not his own.  
  
Besides, it wouldn’t be polite.  
  
Percy can feel Cedric’s smile widen into a grin, and the wind ruffles his hair like the way Cedric would have, if Percy had been one of those Hufflepuffs who always chased after him. He’s not so much a presence now as a reality, nestled deep inside him, utilising Percy’s gangly frame in a way he never imagined possible.  
  
“Thinking about politeness and nobility, Perce?” Cedric asks, his voice seeming to come from just behind Percy’s ear; a light, pleasant tenor with just the hint of a teasing undercurrent. Percy shivers. “We’ll make a Hufflepuff of you yet.”  
  
He snorts loudly at that, and the snort soon turns to dismay as Percy’s body banks the broom into a downwards glide, and Percy’s hands guide it into landing. “Oh,” he pouts, dismayed. “Can’t we go again?” he asks, with all the giddiness of a young child.  
  
The broom settles in for a landing, and Percy’s legs and hips move in just the right way so he hops off expertly without any fuss, and Cedric’s emotion is fond amusement. “No,” replies that voice, “I’d never want to stop.”  
  
Percy chuckles, and takes back volition with a thought; his limbs and posture rearrange themselves to something more familiar, more stiff, and he aches already. He takes one whiff of himself; the sweatshirt he is wearing is soaked in sweat, and the crotch of his tracksuit pants is wet through.  
  
“You need a shower, Percy,” Cedric tells him as if he didn’t know, and all of a sudden one of Percy’s hands moves to slap himself on the arse. “Get going.”  
  
Resisting the impulse to stick his tongue out, Percy makes his way to the locker rooms, spirit following close behind.  
  
*  
  
He always feels so naked in the shower. Not simply because he is naked; but because he has to take his glasses off. At school, he’d cast a charm on them for his first few years, but surely the reputation of the geek who wore his glasses in the shower got to him, and he soon got rid of that particular practice.  
  
The reputation, however, remains.  
  
He soaps himself up, careful to stretch out the aches, fingers paying a little more attention at working the knots out of his body.  
  
“I wish I could do that,” Cedric says, appearing as if out of nowhere. He’s all foggy thanks to the steam and out of focus to boot.  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Percy asks, because he couldn’t have heard him correctly. He squints; not that seeing him will help his hearing, but hopefully he’ll get one of his senses in tune.  
  
“I  _said_ , I wish I could work out all your kinks. I give a good massage, Percy; Captain has to. Shame Oliver never tried it out on you – he was even better than I was.”  
  
The image of Cedric stretched out on a bench, skin glistening with oil as Oliver’s strong hands work him over rises unbidden, and Percy bites his lower lip as his cock twitches and starts to make its appreciation known.  
  
Cedric’s grin turns a little feral, and his eyes glint in a way that should be decidedly impossible for the dearly departed. He leans in closer, arms folded, a vision in grey, still decked out in the very robe he died in, and it’s most disconcerting to have a clothed ghost in the shower with you. “You’re thinking about me, aren’t you?” he asks, and its not really a question.  
  
In his vision, Cedric’s head snaps up from where it rested on the bench, and Cedric smiles a lazy grin at him while Oliver starts to grope his arse, parting the cheeks to lean in and take a little  _taste_ -  
  
“Cedric,” Percy breathes, almost a warning, and Cedric pulls back a little to look at him, friendly, open.  
  
“Percy,” he says, kindly. “I’ve been watching you for almost a year. I’ve been up here more times than I can count,” he adds, and his fingers slide over Percy’s forehead. There’s nothing he can feel; nothing  _to_  feel, but something makes him shiver nonetheless, and he looks at Cedric with lips parted and eyes wide, only one thing in the world left for him right now.  
  
“You liked me,” Cedric tells him bluntly. “You liked Oliver. You like boys, Percy; the more rough and ready and boyish the better. You want to be held and kissed and pinned and tied. You want someone with shoulders, a broad chest and an even broader grin.”  
  
“I-”  
  
“You put that bloody Ravenclaw girl through agony because you couldn’t admit what you wanted. How happy you could be. And you know, I always thought you might be half attractive if you weren’t so fucking stuck up.”  
  
Percy stares at him for a second or two, before his shoulders begin to heave with laughter. He’s naked, bereft of any kind of dignity, with shampoo in his hair running down to sting his eyes, and he’s getting hit on by a ghost.  
  
Cedric looks at him, eyebrow arched. “C’mon. Who am I going to tell?”  
  
Percy snorts loudly at that, and ducks his head under the spray to wash away the suds. “Yes, I liked you. Yes, I liked Oliver. Yes, I liked Davies. I draw the line at Flint, however.” He liked Penny as well, but he feels mentioning that at this point would perhaps cause a minor spat, and he’s had enough of those to last a lifetime.  
  
Cedric chuckles. “Good to see you have some taste.” He furrows his brow, shimmers; he’s still in the same pose, but now he’s wearing his old Quidditch gear. “So, this is your kind of thing,” he murmurs, and flexes his fingers in his glove, holding the right hand up for Percy to see. “Think about what it might have been like, if I’d tied you up with my laces. Or gagged you with this.”  
  
Percy gulps, and finds his mouth has gone rather dry.  
  
“Turn the taps off, Percy,” Cedric tells him.  
  
Percy turns the taps off.  
  
“Step out of the shower.”  
  
He does that too. Cedric leads him to a row of full length mirrors that line one of the walls, and Percy blushes at the sight of himself, fishing his glasses from the nearby pile of clothes and slipping them on.  
  
“I don’t-”  
  
“I want you to jerk off, Percy.”  
  
Percy’s breathing gets a little quicker. “What?”  
  
“I want to see you.”  
  
“Haven’t you seen me enough?”  
  
“I want you to do it over me.”  
  
Percy moans. “Cedric-”  
  
“Please, Percy. If you let me, I could take over and do it for you. But I want you to do it because you want to. Because you’re beautiful when you come and you need to see that. Because I want you to moan out my name.” He’s precise, that Hufflepuff; thorough in his words so he catches Percy in the web of them. Not that Percy minds.  
  
Percy’s breath hitches, and he trails a still slightly soapy hand down to his cock, which has definitely shown some interest in the conversation. He pulls his foreskin back with the practice of someone who has never gotten any, ever, and rubs his thumb over the head. A moan hangs in the air as he reaches back up to taste himself on his fingers, sweet, glossy precome, just a hint of soap, and it’s a second before he realises it’s not him moaning, but Cedric.  
  
“Go on,” he breathes. Cedric shimmers again, clothes disappearing, and yes, Percy does like the boys with broad shoulders and strong chests.  
  
He’s hardly used to being watched, and it makes him uncomfortable at first: his erection flags but he brings it back to life with a few quick tugs. Cedric licks his lips furtively, eager and hungry and desperate to hide it, as Percy is quick to notice.  
  
Cedric senses his surprise and moves closer, chuckling. “Us Hufflepuffs aren’t supposed to be voyeurs, Percy. Or exhibitionists. We always wank with curtains closed and silencing charms up; everything we want has to be consensual and tame, so I probably shouldn’t mention how I would have liked to have left you bound and crying for it.” His tone goes from silky to something far darker, demanding and sure of himself – this is what happens when everyone loves you.  
  
“Tweak a nipple for me,” Cedric orders, voice thick and throaty, and Percy pinches his left nipple, which makes them both cry out.  
  
“Good boy.” He steps closer. “Reach down; fondle your balls.”  
  
Percy does so; captured and caught by those eyes and that jaw, and at every order Cedric takes one step closer, so close that Percy should be able to smell and feel him, but there’s nothing, nothing at all.  
  
“There’s something I want to try,” Cedric grins at him, and then he steps into Percy.  
  
It’s different from the last time; he can feel Cedric’s warm reassurance, but he’s still in control of his body – or so he thinks until his left hand moves to run two fingers across his lips, and it’s Cedric’s breathing that thunders in his ears.  
  
“Suck them,” Cedric tells him, voice firm. There’s a burst of steam from the disused baths that covers up the mirror, and when the steam clears, Percy gasps at what he sees. In place of his own reflection, pale and freckled and thin, is Cedric. Cedric who is strong and solid and wanking himself, looking as real as day, like he was the living one and Percy just a voice at the back of his head.  
  
“I can make you see anything,” crows Cedric, and Percy slurps on those fingers obediently, feeling as they fuck his mouth, dragging his lips in and out a little. For a moment, the reflection shimmers, turns into someone else; someone with close cropped hair and a bright grin and exquisite eyes. He’s a little taller than Cedric, and broader, because Keepers don’t exactly need to worry about their build; strong arms and muscled legs, and Oliver Wood grins at him from the mirror as he jerks his thick cock.  
  
“Do you like this, Perce?” he asks, sounding so real and so true, although Percy knows who’s behind it; he knows he’s being played like a puppet on a string.  
  
“God, Cedric…” Percy all but whimpers, fingers moving to brush behind and over his entrance, hips thrusting wildly for a moment.  
  
“Call me Oliver,” he suggests, accent rich and all too believable; at least the way Percy hears it. “You know you want to.”  
  
“ _Cedric_ ,” Percy moans again, drawing the name out; soon the reflection shimmers again and returns to Cedric’s more boyish frame.  
  
“Easy there, Percy,” Cedric cautions him, and grins. It’s like the sun coming out. “Can’t have you coming too soon.”  
  
Percy shivers, and his fingers edge a little deeper, and then he gets control back.  
  
“Fuck yourself,” commands Cedric, voice throaty. There is hardly a trace of the civilised, bashful schoolboy now; eyes locked into Percy’s as he gazes for the mirror, and then he blushes, moment of command all but gone. “For me?”  
  
“Y-yes,” Percy blathers, barely hearing himself respond as he slides one finger in, then a second to their shared sighs, because Cedric’s there, Cedric can feel it, feel him.  
  
“Wish it was me,” he murmurs, and Percy just nods his agreement, feeling his fingers stretch him out, and imagining Cedric’s cock in their place.  
  
“I’d fuck you so good,” Cedric promises as Percy pumps his cock with one hand and fucks himself with the other, sending a shock of ecstasy through his sweaty body every time he hits his prostate, mouth open and keening as he arches up on the balls of his feet.  
  
He comes crying Cedric’s name, seeing Cedric, hearing Cedric, Cedric, Cedric everywhere, and his hips jerk as he spills himself in ropes all over that mirror. Cedric’s image slowly fades, and Percy is too busy panting and trying not collapse to notice the gleam in Cedric’s eye, the grin of triumph as anything more than afterglow and elation.  
  
*  
  
“Oh. It’s you.”  
  
“Hello, Penny,” Percy attempts a smile, and brandishes the bouquet of flowers he’s picked up for her on the way from work. The violets are wilting a little, but then he rather suspects his smile is as well. Penny peers at him from behind her door, and doesn’t show any sign of welcoming him in. “I’m sorry I didn’t drop you a note beforehand, but it was a spur of the moment thing, really, and for some reason, I thought you might not want me over.” He runs slender fingers through his thin hair, and tries to turn the nervous smile into an even more nervous laugh. That at least works, but Penelope’s expression does not change. Percy has never been able to read her expressions – definitely not a strength in any boyfriend – but then, as her boyfriend he had few strengths at all.  
  
“What do you want?” she asks, sounding more tired than anything else, and she’s gotten pale and thinner; more weary with the world and because of it, but then these are trying times for all of them, not that anyone cares about poor Percy.  
  
“I want some help with something.”  
  
Penny laughs, brittle and none-too-pleased. “I’m sure you with all your contacts and all your advantages will be able to sort whatever it is, Percy. You don’t need me.”  
  
“It’s a matter of some importance-”  
  
“-It always is with you.”  
  
“If you’d just listen to me, Penny, and not just shut the door in my face-”  
  
Another laugh. “Like you did to me all the time? Shutting me out, not telling what was going on? I think you deserve to know what it’s like.”  
  
Predictably, at this point, Penny begins to close the door in his face. Fortunately, Percy is quick and Percy is desperate, and so he shoves his foot in the gap before she can get it closed.  
  
“Percy,” she sighs, sounding low and not in the best of tempers.  
  
“It’s research, Penny, I don’t know anyone smarter and I don’t know who I can trust.” He sags against the door, because there’s nothing much else he can say and he’s at his wits’ end.  
  
The door opens a creak wider. Penny peers at him again, curious, because she never could resist a good mystery. It’s one of the reasons she joined the Department thereof; pure research is not so much a passion as it is her life. “…What is it?” she asks, and sounds like she already regrets the question.  
  
“I keep seeing– Cedric.” It all sounds so silly when he says it.  
  
“Yes, Oliver told me,” Penny tells him, like she could be talking about the weather.  
  
Percy feels a sudden stab of jealousy, although if asked he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint whom he was jealous of, exactly. “You talk to Oliver?”  
  
“Yes, I do,” she replies dourly, and shrugs. “You should talk to him more often. I talk to a lot of people, Percy,” she continues. “Roger, Cho, Oliver…I have this thing called a life, Percy, maybe you’ve heard of it.”  
  
Percy makes a face. “Very funny, Penelope. May I come in?”  
  
Penny sighs, her entire body sagging as she runs fingers through her hair. “I don’t know, Percy, it’s been-”  
  
Something in Percy breaks, and the words pour out of him, bitter and cutting. “I’ll beg, Penny. Is that what you want? To see me beg?”  
  
Penny pulls the door wide open and looks at him with a stunned expression that could cross over into fury at any second. Percy braces himself, and then she sags, too, tired and faded and older than she should be.  
  
“It was never about begging, Percy. Never about pride or shame or politics. But you didn’t get that,” she says, turning away from the door, resigned, so the entrance lies open and breached. He’s won; it’s a victory and yet he doesn’t feel triumphant as she moves to let him pass.  
  
“Come inside,” she says. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”  
  
Percy starts to feel a little more at ease again; and begins to remind her of exactly how much sugar he prefers, and how long the tea should be allowed to draw, but his explanation falters at the glance Penny favours him with, withering and pitiful.  
  
“Don’t worry, Percy,” she says, the way she might to a dumb animal and a small child, and there is the kind of presumptive reassurance in that he associates with his mother. “Two years, and I still remember exactly how you like it.”  
  
She pats him on the shoulder; Percy goes inside.  
  
*  
  
Several cups of tea later, half eaten plates of dinner lay congealing on the table. Their state is hardly testament to Penny’s culinary skills; she remains an excellent cook, as Percy coolly observes, and her steak tartare remains a very fine meal indeed. But Percy has greater concerns to deal with, and Penny was, is and ever more shall be a Ravenclaw, so she curls up on the couch with a stack of books by her side, and Percy props himself against the couch by her side, a glass of red wine in his hand. It really is an exquisite Cabernet Sauvignon, fruity and aromatic, a fine complement to the aftertaste of the steak. But he does not praise Penny for her choice in wine, nor on her cooking; there are simply expectations met and observations made, easily catalogued in the back of his mind and left aside for the time such things will be needed.  
  
The hours pass and the night grows deeper; the shadows seem to creep across the mantle in the small hours of the morning, and Penny has to redo the illumination charm that brightens up the room several times before they find anything.  
  
Penny does not scream or squeal or cry ‘a-ha!’; she is a Ravenclaw, and as such knows that discovery is only the first step. Any result must be examined, considered, tested and verified; she simply straightens in her seat, stretching, and Percy is too deep in a compendium of the  _Malus Malificarum_  to notice.  
  
“Percy?”  
  
“Mmm?” There’s an absolutely wonderful section on  _inferi_ , but Percy doesn’t think that quite applies here. Still, he blinks at the text, refusing to give into weariness, and holds it a little way away from the cradle of his knees, as if distance might help him perceive some great truth that was not there before.  
  
It doesn’t. Blast.  
  
“I think I’ve found something,” Penny says, and sounds quite irritated at the fact she can’t discern or discard whatever it is; a thing can only be determined to be true when it is absolute – this is an old maxim of Rowena’s, and Penny used to quote it at him often. When he stirs, shrugging aching shoulders and turning, she is making a small moue of displeasure, her brow creased in a frown, head of raven black hair cascading down past her shoulders in little ringlets, and Percy feels a moment of melancholy for what was and what could not be.  
  
Penny seems to notice his attention, and her eyes flicker up from the book to look at him, puzzled, her puzzlement turning into a smile. “Why are you looking at me so?” she exclaims, ready to be joyous, and Percy wants to kiss her for a second.  
  
“I’d almost forgotten how beautiful you were,” he murmurs, and that smile turns uncertain before it fades.  
  
“Percy-” she begins, and it’s almost a warning, but he’s high on wine and desperation, and presses his case a little further. Nothing he can lose now, after all.  
  
“Penny, you were. You  _are_. And sometimes I-”  
  
“Percy, don’t-”  
  
“Penny, there wasn’t any other girl. You know that, don’t you?” He holds her eyes, and knows she understands just how important it is for him to say this, for her to understand, even if there is too much time gone by and not enough wine drunk for them to begin again. The bottle of wine he has consumed seems to hit him all of sudden; everything seems clearer and not that clear – he can move mountains now but he might need to cling to the couch if he stands.  
  
Penny smiles then; it’s faint and sad, but it’s a smile nonetheless. “I know I was the only girl for  _you_ , Percy,” and the fact she has to mention the gender makes Percy want to flee, for even his ex-girlfriend knows he is something not quite right.  
  
“Penny, I-” he tries to explain it, but there’s nothing to explain and no excuses possible. Penny sees his fear and discomfort and reaches forward to cup his jaw in a side; he leans into that touch like a benediction and her smile soon returns. Penny leans closer, almost close enough to kiss, and Percy holds his breath.  
  
“Percy, honestly, it’s alright,” she tells him, not knowing how she’s breaking his heart again. “It’s hardly obvious, just from the way you talk about people from time to time.”  
  
Percy doesn’t want it to be alright. He wants to be good political material and go down in history, and he’s canny enough to know what an asset a wife can be, and how no Minister of Magic has ever been  _abnormal_.  
  
“Now,” Penelope leans back, thinking everything has been sorted, “have a read of this. Your Mandarin is a lot better than mine. I’m going to make another cup of tea.” She hands over an old compendium of folklore and charms; rice paper and faded ink. Percy glances at a page and catalogues the brushstrokes as being indicative of the Han dynasty; another useless fact to ruminate on at another time.  
  
As Percy stares blankly at the page, she extricates herself from the couch and steps over him, heading for the kitchen. His hand clutches limply at the book, and he gazes after her; there’s a palpable sense of time running out, and Percy has never coped well under pressure. Still, he is a Gryffindor through and through, which means he is brave, impulsive and stubborn to the core, and he manages to burst out with “But I still love you!” before her hand reaches the door knob.  
  
Penny stops at that; straightens, and smooths down her blouse before turning to face him, arms crossed just under her breasts so the swell of them curves the fabric in ways Percy’s eyes instinctually trace. “Percy,” she begins, with just a touch of firmness, “you couldn’t touch me in two years.”  
  
“I thought you were too good to be touched by me.”  
  
“Percy,” she says, exasperated, and there’s more than a touch this time, “that’s worship, not love. When you put someone on a pedestal all that happens is they get scared of heights.”  
  
“But Penny, I-” he starts, although she won’t hear a single word.  
  
“Percy, you dated me because I reminded you of your mother. And I have to say, from my perspective, the comparison wasn’t very flattering.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
She softens, a little, at his obvious perturbation. But it’s a tired softening; she’s weary more than anything, worn by life, by the night, by him. “Read the book, Percy,” she tells him, before pushing the door open to stride inside. “I want to know what it says.”  
  
It takes him a few moments to refocus and remember exactly what it is she is talking about; the pale complexion of her skin and the firmness of her thigh (often glimpsed but never touched) are replaying themselves ad nauseam in his wine-addled brain. But the book is the only thing left to him, now, and perhaps he can salvage something out of this wreck of a night, even if he himself is beyond rescue.  
  
He takes a deep breath, and looks down at the open page. The characters swim a little, and he blinks and forces himself to concentrate, staring doggedly at the text. “Sometimes,” Percy reads aloud, in halting tones, “ghosts come back broken.”

*  
  
There is precious little of substance to be found in the text, unfortunately; an exhortation towards care and diligence when dealing with the dead, but then the Chinese tended to espouse care and diligence as their solution to anything. Bloody Confucians, really.  
  
Penny seems almost as upset as he at the lack of useful fact; no-one bothers examining the dead, typically because they cannot do any magic and therefore any not perceived as harmful. Worse off even than Muggles, they are simply there, about as offensive as a potted plant, and like most potted plants, completely in the background. Still, she promises she will root about at work for what she can, and when Percy thanks her effusively for the help, she laughs and kisses his forehead.  
  
“I did find an exorcism ritual,” she tells him. “Do you want it?”  
  
More thanks follow, Percy promising her dinner one night, and flowers, and wine; Penny laughs it all off and wryly comments that she makes more than he does, and her parents are quite well off, thankyou, so the point is moot. When he presses, Penny tells him that fine, as a favour, he can invite Oliver round for dinner next Christmas because God knows they both need the company, and when he looks perplexed at that, Penny just laughs again and gives him a peck on the cheek.  
  
He saunters home, befuddled but in high spirits, and thankful tomorrow is a Saturday when all of a sudden Cedric Diggory materialises half way out of some bushes and gives him the fright of his life.  
  
“Trying to get rid of me, are you?”  
  
“No,” Percy says, automatically, and he isn’t sure if that’s true or not.  
  
*  
  
They arrive home. Percy’s flat has not been magically transformed from its shoebox-like state, and he chucks off his tie and shoes and sinks blessedly into a chair. Cedric stands a little way off to the side, in front of him, and demands answers in the pointedness of his gaze.  
  
“I just want you to be happy,” Percy says lamely, and knows how bad that sounds.  
  
“Do you what the thing is about being dead?” Cedric asks, and predictably, Percy shakes his head. “You don’t change. You can’t. Only the living grow. I mean, I can think, I can reflect – but I’m the same boy who died when Lord Voldemort wanted me dead and I’ll always be that same boy.”  
  
Percy stirs a little to utter his usual refutation of You Know Who’s return, but the words don’t exactly come rolling smoothly off his lips. Not after having Cedric in his head for months.  
  
“Take Cho,” Cedric tells him. “I’ve had crushes before. Girlfriends. One boyfriend,” he grins suddenly at that, before looking rather abashed and moving on. “In time, you break up, realise there are other people and he or she  _isn’t_  actually your soulmate. But  _at_  the time, you feel like they’re your world. Like there’s no-one else, and couldn’t be. I’m stuck like that.”  
  
“You know what’s happened to her,” Percy tells him. “You’ve been in my mind enough to know.”  
  
“True,” Cedric admits, wrinkling his nose. He grimaces, and when he speaks his voice is low and full of warning. “But I want you to  _say_  it.”  
  
“I heard she’s dating Harry,” Percy swallows, stunned by the sudden wave of rage that crosses Cedric’s face.  
  
“Bitch,” he curses. “Unfaithful, lying  _bitch_.” It takes a moment, but Percy realises Cedric’s shaking so because he’s crying. “How many months did it take her to move on? Did she even  _wait_  till I was cold in my grave?”  
  
“Cedric-”  
  
“Don’t you  _get_  it, Percy? She can keep going. You can all  _keep going_. I can’t. I can check up on her, certainly; her or Zach or anyone I gave a damn about. And how do you think they’d greet me?” He laughs; it’s bitter. “I talk to you because you’re the only person as much stuck in the past as I am.”  
  
They look at each other; Percy is perversely heartened by the fact he meets Cedric’s gaze and holds it.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want me to…help you along?” he asks.  
  
“Exorcism?” Cedric scoffs. “What peace could I find, even in oblivion. I wanted to do so much, Percy. I had so much to give. My father expected great things of me; I expected great things of me. Good things, besides the odd spot of eternal glory.”  
  
He smiles thinly, and Percy doesn’t know what to say to make it better. “Oh yes, I wanted to be remembered, and  _boy_ , will I be remembered now. As a  _footnote_.” The smile gets broader, but it doesn’t become any more pleasant. “Does Binns teach me yet, or is still obsessing over goblins?”  
  
“I don’t think that’s appropriate, Cedric-”  
  
“I don’t  _care_  what you think is appropriate, Percy. Finally, he gets a piece of living history, and he doesn’t even use it. He could tell stories about me in class; they all could. They should write a book: ‘Cedric Diggory, we knew him well’.”  
  
“I hardly think-”  
  
“I  _warned_  you about thinking,” Cedric snaps, and then rips at him again. “That’s all I am now; my own particular brand of  _eternal glory_ ,” he sneers. “The opening salvo in a war I didn’t want, and a fight we’re losing, because people like you don’t know what to stand up for and people like me end up dead. I deserve better than that,” he finishes, and Percy gapes at him, taken aback.  
  
They stare at each other for a while. Finally, Percy stirs. “I think I’ll go to bed,” he says, quietly, and stands from the armchair, giving his back a little crick.  
  
“Mind if I watch you sleep?” asks Cedric, and he sounds so alone that Percy can’t help but understand.  
  
“Yes,” he says, and knows he would never exorcise him now. He needs him too much.  
  
*  
  
That night Lord Voldemort is sighted in the Department of Mysteries, and several Death Eaters are captured. The following days and nights are busy ones for Percy Weasley, Junior Assistant to the Minister of Magic, and they fall into an odd schedule.  
  
Percy rises early and works late; they exchange basic greetings as he arrives and as he leaves, but Cedric never goes away, and he never leaves Percy’s humdrum little flat, from what Percy can tell. He watches Percy though; in the shower, doing the dishes, reading the paper. Every small detail is gobbled up and raked over by someone with a hunger for living that Percy finds astonishing, as he knows all too well that so far he hasn’t really done much with his life.  
  
Finally, Percy shuffles home with a heavy heart and knows he looks absolutely dismal. “The Minister has just resigned,” he says to Cedric, who greets him from the kitchen like the very image of the at-home spouse, which would be amusing if he weren’t so dead. “I want to get drunk. I want to get very, very drunk.” Their eyes meet, and Percy knows Cedric understands what he wants, from the way Cedric nods and quickly strides to step into him. Percy lets go completely and abandons himself to isolation and melancholia, simply along for the ride as Cedric takes his body on a bender which he feels for weeks. He wakes two days later in his bed, in full control of his faculties and rather wishing he weren’t. As he tries for breakfast, and pukes it up soon enough, he tells himself: this is trust; this is the product of trust, and I was fool enough to trust Fudge. Percy is an aspiring politician; he hitched his star to Cornelius Fudge and knows that happens to those who soar too high too fast; when the new Minister is elected, he goes to work with a sour taste in his mouth and waits for his fall.  
  
He has not seen Cedric since that night; he is probably off haunting someone else, and Percy feels piqued at the notion.  
  
*  
  
His office has not changed. Weeks later, and it is still the same. He is still the same; a little more jaded, perhaps, a little less ambitious, but still the same old Percy. He wonders if you do not need to be dead to prove unable to change, and hates himself for that line of thought. He hates himself anyway; there are no more documents to peruse, no more papers to sign, no more committees to chair or long lunches to have, and all he is left with are his demons, who are a far sight less attractive than Cedric Diggory. He may be Junior Assistant to the Minister, but Rufus Scrimgeour is quite a different kettle of fish from Cornelius Fudge, and this Minister needs no assistance.  
  
At one point early in August, Percy had dared to broach the topic with him. He consulted the Minister’s Private Secretary, made an appointment, crossed his t’s and dotted his i’s – in part because that was his nature, but chiefly because it gave the man less room to wriggle out of things. Still, from what Percy has observed, Rufus does not have a respect for the niceties of polite society in the same way Cornelius did. To Fudge, manners were everything. To Scrimgeour, manners are a means to an end and politeness merely a mask; but then, Percy rather suspects the man thinks everything is a means to an end. Even him.  
  
For someone of his age, he certainly refuses to slow down. When Percy meets him in his office – only the second time since his appointment as Minister – the man is leaning over his desk avidly, scrutinising reports and shuffling papers. There is an anxiety in his movement, a need for activity. Percy gets a rare insight; he feels that Rufus Scrimigeour relishes the fight against Voldemort because it is a fight, and he is not a man who likes being still.  
  
“Minister,” he begins, respectful and dutiful, and a bit of sucking up never hurt.  
  
Scrimgeour barely spares him a glance, and harrumphs out a greeting. “Ah, Weasley.” He doesn’t ask Percy to sit down.  
  
“Minister, you’ve been in office now for a few months, and yet, I find I haven’t been privileged to assist you in any way.”  
  
“Oh, no. I like to do all these things myself,” the Minister replies, almost cheerily. “Details matter, you know. Devil’s in them. Besides, if I need advice, I can always ask one of my people.”  
  
The fact Percy is not ‘his people’ is definitely not a good sign, but he ploughs on regardless; it is this Gryffindor bravery that has lead him to confront his family, to stand up for Fudge and now to defy the highest official of the land. “Then, sir, I would ask if my work performance has offended you in any way.”  
  
That brings the Minister up short. “ _Offended_  me? Can’t say that it has. But then, I haven’t given it much thought. Oh, I’ve reviewed your work, Weasley; it’s all very good. Very officious. You’re a top level bureaucrat, that’s for certain; but there’s no flair in it, no passion. I’d have thought Arthur’s son would have more heart to him, but I’m sorry to say I was wrong.”  
  
It’s the first time Percy’s been compared to his father and found wanting; he doesn’t know how to respond.  
  
“Still,” the Minister continues, “I did promise Arthur I wouldn’t fire you, and that means he owes me. I’m not about to let him forget that!” he chortles, and looks up at Percy with predatory eyes.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
“You think Fudge promoted you for your looks, boy? No, he did not. You are ambitious and competent, but then the Ministry is built on people like you, and Fudge didn’t select any of  _them_  to be his Junior Assistant. Cornelius wanted you because you gave him a tie to Arthur Weasley, and through him, Albus Dumbledore. Capable though you may be, you are a hostage, Weasley, and if I were you, I’d be a good little hostage and take the title we’ve kept you for and be thankful.”  
  
There is a long pause as he glances down at his papers and Percy searches for something to say. “Can’t you – can’t you give me something to  _do_?” he asks, voice reedy.  
  
The Minister looks up at him like he’s surprised he’s still there. “Lord, no,” he remarks, clearly taken aback. “I like my staff to be something more than simply competent, Weasley,” and with that pronouncement of Percy’s inability to come up to spec, he waves him away; he does have a war to wage, after all.  
  
Percy trudges back to his office and settles behind his desk. First he organises all his pens, then all the ink and quills. Then the parchments, notebooks, journals, clips, folders, files and all the other ephemera his drawers contain. The next day he starts on the bookshelves; rearranging and alphabetising the shelves in terms of subject and author.    
  
Time stretches, and does not break; he is reduced to something pitiful, if he would let anyone pity him. He fails to respond to Penny’s messages, will not take Oliver’s calls, and most singularly of all, Cedric does not materialise on cue.  
  
He starts in on the more esoteric branches of Wizarding right and common law; Cedric will not be any less dead for his inattention, and surely, somewhere, there must be a statute or ruling that will save him from his own mediocrity – something far less painful or public than resignation. His original letter of resignation lies in pieces in a drawer; if he wished, he could probably rewrite it word for word. The dead have not lingered and the living have not given him absolution. There is no contact from his family, but then he wouldn’t know how to respond to it if there was.  
  
He pulls the torn pieces of parchment from the second drawer down and examines it, laying it out on the desk so he can reassemble the whole. His eyes and fingers linger over the fragments so long that his skin begins to smell musty, and all he can see is the swirl of his penmanship. He could just change the dates; make things easier. It would be an easy route to take.  
  
A paper plane glides through his door with a certain grace and lands neatly on his desk, disturbing his reverie. He scoops the pieces back into their drawer; picks up the plane and unfolds it.    
  
The Minister, it seems, is requesting his presence as soon as possible; Percy checks the clock on the wall – it reads ‘You’d better start going now, you slack-arsed twit’ and surely it is right. He hurries himself a few corridors away and a flight of stairs down until he gets to the Minister’s office, and his unbearably pretty young blond secretary who is sadly far, far more than simply ‘competent’ ushers him in.  
  
“Weasley.” He’s shuffling some papers, signing some forms – all in a day’s work, except Percy has no work to do anymore.  
  
“Minister.”  
  
“I understand there’s been a falling out with your family last year.”  
  
Percy’s voice goes tight. “Yes, sir. Although I don’t know what it has to do with my job.”  
  
Scrimgeour harrumphs in that way that makes Percy think he might have choked on a hairball, and who wouldn’t with a beard like that? “It has everything to do with your job, boy. Currently you are valuable to me because of your father, and from what I understand Harry Potter is staying with your family. I need to talk to Harry Potter; so you shall visit your family.”  
  
“They won’t want to see me,” Percy admits in a small, lonely voice, and falters at the thought.    
  
“It’s hardly my problem if you devalued your best asset,” the Minister tells him carelessly, going through stacks of papers. “Now, where did I put my glasses…?”  
  
Percy feels forsaken, unwanted, friendless and alone, but he hasn’t gotten where he is by being a coward. “What if I say no?”  
  
The Minister’s head snaps up at that, and he seems to be smiling. “Why, you might almost be Arthur’s boy after all. Certainly Molly’s,” he adds after a moment of examination. “If you say no, well. There’s a bright young thing in the Department of Mysteries who promises to go far one day. Except for the fact she was caught sneaking a glance at research above her clearances. I’d hate to be the one responsible for ending her career.”  
  
“This is blackmail,” Percy tells him, chin jutting up. “You’re using me to get to my family, to get to Potter.”  
  
“No worse than using your ex-girlfriend to do your dirty work,” Rufus replies coolly. “She wouldn’t say exactly what she was up to, but in times of national crisis I am authorised to use Veritaserum.”  
  
“That goes against the law-”  
  
“I  _am_  the law,” the Minister snaps, every inch of him imperial and demanding. “We are in a war, and such things cannot be and will not be won by the niceties. I  _will_  have my victory. For people like you, Percy, even though you can hardly begin to appreciate it.” He grabs a coat from the nearby hatstand. “Let’s go visit the Weasleys.”  
  
They go visit the Weasleys.  
  
*  
  
It does not go well; Percy returns to work the following day and slumps in his chair, ruminating upon the wreckage of his life. He is a pawn; always has been a pawn. There is nothing here he can say he earned; the straw man takes his bow and leaves the stage.  
  
He is just about to adjust the paintings on his wall when a parcel arrives; it’s a gift from the Minister, sans card.  
  
He opens it; it’s a brand new potted plant, to replace the one that died. He shoves it in the corner and hopes it suffers the same fate.  
  
*  
  
Frustratingly, it still hasn’t died by the time Cedric turns up; wreathed in cold and grey and a fond, sad smile.    
  
“Things not going your way? I half expected to turn up and see you piss on the daft plant.”  
  
“Give you a few more days and I just might,” Percy responds, his spirits rising. “You were watching?”  
  
“Course I was. Something we ghosts become very good at,” he asserts.  
  
“Why didn’t you appear?” Percy wants to know, and he doesn’t care how lonely he sounds. “Why couldn’t I see you?”  
  
Cedric blushes at that; at least, Percy assumes he does; he’s all faded grey and sepia most of the time, so blushes are a little hard to fathom, and looks down at his shoes. It’s bashful, adorable, and completely Cedric. “I didn’t feel comfortable, seeing you. Not after what I did.”  
  
“What you did?” Percy asks, bewildered.  
  
“I used you. I took control of your body, and I made you do things.” Guiltily, Cedric shifts from foot to foot; his shame was adorable a minute ago but it’s rapidly losing its welcome.  
  
“Cedric, you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to,” Percy tells him, torn between reassurance and thin-edged irritation.  
  
“You don’t get it,” Cedric snaps, with a hardness in his voice that makes Percy blink. “I’m dead. You’re not. And for a while, I stopped being dead. I didn’t- I didn’t want to go back,” he bursts out. “I didn’t want to let go. I used you; I used your life. I lived it, for a moment or two. It was like rape.”  
  
Percy looks at him for a moment or two before he offers some kind of salvation. “I’m glad someone got some kind of use out of my life, for once.”  
  
“You don’t mean that,” Cedric tells him, patronising. Percy thinks it’s unfair the dead have any right to judge, really.  
  
“Yes,” he says simply. “I  _do_. I don’t have a problem with you doing that; it’s good to know there’s  _something_  I can be for someone, at last. If you want to do it again…”  
  
Cedric manages a smile, thin and sharp to go with the pointed glint in his eye. “So very tempting,” he murmurs, leaning over to brush the backs of fingers that aren’t there over Percy’s temple. “It was me, you know,” he murmurs softly.  
  
“What was you?” Percy asks, leaning into a touch that he can’t feel.  
  
“The time you had anonymous sex at school. It was with a boy; he was Polyjuiced, but you didn’t know who. It was me.”  
  
Percy stares at him, swallows; Cedric has lived so long in his mind now he could very well be lying. There’s not an experience of Percy’s he’s left unturned, a memory he hasn’t relived. Conversely, Percy knows not that much new about him in return; the dead do keep their secrets close to their chests. It could be true; it could be not. Percy is rather touched by the possibility it’s not, and that Cedric would lie to make him feel better.  
  
“What’s it like being dead?” he asks impulsively.  
  
Cedric shrugs. “Boring. Pointless. Nothing to do.”  
  
“Ah,” Percy replies archly. “Sounds like a holiday my family took once to Blackpool.”  
  
They share a smile; Percy doesn’t kiss him because he can’t.  
  
*  
  
Winter comes; blustery cold, and Percy wraps himself up in sweater and coat and scarf for each and every day of December. Cedric is everywhere; in his home, in his office, in his life, and Percy doesn’t mind. Percy barely notices; he’s so used to it.  
  
Christmas comes, and nearly goes; he invites Oliver, who doesn’t show, and spends half the evening finishing off the remaining mince pies and the turkey, and having the odd tipple of red wine.  
  
The fire is warm and the wine is warmer, flowing easily down the gullet and into his belly. Cedric is resting on the couch, and the silence between them is companionable rather than strained. Percy reads a Muggle favourite of his father’s that’s appropriate for the season, and tries not to think too deeply on the possibilities of reconciliation.  
  
Sometime just before the midnight hour, there is a knock at the door.  
  
Percy and Cedric look up at exactly the same time, and Cedric raises an eyebrow. Percy shrugs; they need no words. He pounds down the steps with heavy footfalls, idly knotting the tie of his robe loosely around himself. The wind is vicious and biting when he finally manages to yank the door open, and Oliver Wood peers at him with a warm grin on his lips. He’s just as bundled up as he should be, making quite the picture in snug woollen beanie and earmuffs, and his cheeks are rosy from the cold, and Percy suspects, no small amount of alcohol. The beanie looks like something Percy’s mother would knit; as long as it was meant to be a tea cosy.  
  
“Got any crackers left, Perce?” Oliver asks, stepping inside when Percy lets him. They exchange small, hopeful smiles that never leave their eyes, and as Oliver clambers all the way back up the creaky wooden stairs to Percy’s humdrum little flat, Percy’s eyes never leave him.  
  
It is relatively simple enough to reheat what is left of Christmas dinner, and if there are any complaints, well, they are eased by some more of that fine red wine. Percy enquires after Oliver’s career, despite the fact he knows the answers; Oliver congratulates Percy on maintaining his promotion. They are very careful not to jar each other’s sore points, and their conversation resembles a form of arcane but elegance dance as a result; all flutter and no substance, as they eye each other carefully. For their interaction is careful, and not wary. They are not combatants here, not enemies, and perhaps they never were. Simply two lonely, sad souls, as lonely and sad as this sorry world can make them, and now as they are a little more wiser, a little more graver and a lot less hopeful, they understand that teenagers can be teenagers, and boys will be boys – grown men have an entirely different way of managing to spite one another than childish insult and playful snub.  
  
The hour grows late, and then later still. Percy curls up on one side of the couch; with Oliver on the other. Percy holds his glass like a goblet, fingers cradled around the stem. Oliver is simpler, plainer. They look at each other, but do not touch – their absences have always carried more meaning than any act they took.  
  
“I slept with Clearwater last month,” Oliver says suddenly, and knocks back the last of his wine.  
  
“Did you?” Percy closes his eyes, and just sounds tired.  
  
“It was stupid. We were sad, and drunk, and we couldn’t stop wondering why people as smart and brave as us could somehow not show you that we had a heart to love, and in that heart courage to make that love known?” The Scottish accent flows through the words like honey; Percy very much wants to melt.  
  
“Oliver…” Percy doesn’t dare open his eyes, but soon enough a warm hand is cupping his cheek, warm breath hovering over his lips, and he can’t resist that – these are times that try men’s souls, especially considering he’s only been in love with Oliver since about fifth year. He opens his eyes to see Oliver close enough to kiss, and he smells of soap and sweat and far too much wine, and that makes him wrinkle his nose and hesitate, just a little. After all, life has proven to be problematic before now, and Percy knows that whatever he’s wanted has always remained tantalisingly out of reach. He doesn’t want this to turn to dust and ashes, but he knows not how it can be avoided; this is the be all and end all of his experiences, and life is a zero-sum game. He thinks Oliver would appreciate the irony. “You’re drunk.”  
  
“Course I am,” Oliver grins, all chipper and plastered, and leans in for a clumsy kiss. Percy turns his head from it, and so Oliver’s lips find his ear. “I had to get drunk, or I wouldn’t have the guts to tell you.”  
  
“Tell me what?” Percy asks. He knows, of course; he’s not stupid. But he needs to hear it.  
  
Oliver’s index finger traces a lazy path up his neck, grazing the skin with a nail in a way that shouldn’t make Percy shiver, but does – and it seems his aspirations towards normality are receding further with every second. “That I love you, silly.” Oliver’s voice is teasing, just like that blasted finger, or the warm mist of his breath against the skin of Percy’s neck, and he can make silly sound like an endearment rather than the insult Percy should take it as.  
  
“Oh.” The word falls from his mouth, stunned. It’s one thing to know what will happen, and quite another to  _have_  it happen; Percy doubts all things, especially himself. Oliver makes it sound like all things are possible, and maybe, just maybe, they are. He takes Oliver’s head between his hands and looks at him fond and stern, like one would a puppy. “This can’t work, you know.”  
  
Oliver just looks at him with those eyes and shakes his head to and fro.  
  
“It can’t!” Percy says, exasperated.  
  
“Tell me why not, then.”  
  
“Because  _look_  at us.”  
  
“Yes, look at us,” Oliver challenges. “Ministry lackey and reserve bloody Keeper. Not exactly where we thought we’d be, is it? High time life gave us a break. Besides,” he continues, and taps Percy’s nose which can’t help but make him smile, “where else have we got to go, but up?”  
  
“You’re shocking,” Percy scolds, but his eyes are smiling, and he yelps when Oliver pulls open his robe and sticks his hands under his nightshirt. Yelping turns to wriggling, and squirming, and laughter is had by all. “Stop that!” he says, quite futilely, noticing that somehow in the process Oliver has managed to straddle his legs and is now settled easily on his waist. “Your hands are cold.” He manages a glare, and a pout, and sticks his tongue out.  
  
“Better warm them up then,” Oliver murmurs briskly, and leans down to lick a stripe along Percy’s jaw.  
  
“Oliver…”  
  
Oliver removes his hands from his shirt and doesn’t pay any attention to the scolding, pinning Percy far too easily against the couch. It simply isn’t fair, Percy thinks, but he doesn’t protest – just loses himself in those brown eyes.  
  
There’s a flicker of movement in the doorway to the kitchen, and Percy sees Cedric there, shrouded in shadow, the expression on his face unclear.  
  
“Cedric’s here,” he whispers to Oliver, who glances away immediately – and just as quickly Percy breaks Oliver’s grasp and grabs Oliver’s head between his hands, bringing Oliver’s gaze back to him and him alone before he can look over and see the one thing Percy can’t be for him in the hallway.  
  
“What did you do that for?” Oliver enquires, still in a whisper; it’s quiet like a funeral, all the more so because of their audience.  
  
“I want you to look at me,” Percy tells him, sounding quite possessive. “Besides, Cedric won’t want the attention.” He rubs his knuckles reassuringly down Oliver’s back; Oliver wriggles uncomfortably at the touch; he is no cat, this man.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because he’s dead,” he states, “and we’re not.”  
  
*  
  
When they kiss, it’s not perfect. It’s not awkward; it’s not clumsy, but there are no bells ringing, no choirs of angels in heaven. It’s sad and apologetic and Percy feels like he’s drowning – he clutches to Oliver and Oliver clutches to him, so maybe he feels it too.  
  
The kiss is slow and languid; there is no fire here. Consuming, and passionate yes, but still Percy feels like he wants to cry, and considering the record of his life he knows that this too shall end. Still, they are both Gryffindors: both impulsive, and both brave, and better perhaps to jump into the abyss and pray for a soft landing than merely await the inevitable.  
  
There is movement at the corner of his eye, but Percy pays it no heed; he is there, Oliver is there and the kiss ends with a smile. There is not even time to register alarm before Cedric strides through the couch and into Oliver.  
  
Percy has known Oliver for many years; you cannot live with someone one bed over for seven years and not know him fairly well. Even if Oliver is not always comprehensible, he is familiar, and what stretches Oliver’s mouth out in a grin and arches his back like a cat is anything but familiar.  
  
“Hello, Percy,” he murmurs, accent soft, so soft as to be barely registering, and Percy instinctively spits in his face.  
  
“Get. Out.” He growls and moves to slap him, but Cedric merely grabs his wrists and pins him, laughing at his struggles.  
  
“Come now, is that any way to treat your new boyfriend?” he enquires, irony dripping from every feature of a face that isn’t his.  
  
“You are not my new boyfriend, and neither is Oliver, which makes the point moot.” Percy snaps at him.  
  
“You love him,” Cedric reminds him. “And for the moment, I  _am_  him.”  
  
“I love my parents as well, but I turned down the invitation to Christmas dinner. Now get  _out_  of him.” He writhes a little more, and manages to break the grip for just a moment. A moment is all he needs to pull his wand out of a pocket, and hold it at Cedric’s neck.  
  
“What are you going to do? Hurt this pretty face of his? I doubt it. You’re not that kinky, and I should know.” He folds his hand over Percy’s, and pushes the wand away before he leans in to brush his lips over Percy’s temple, and makes him recoil in disgust. “I know everything you know, felt everything you’ve felt. I’ve studied your dreams, your hopes, your fears – you’ll get used to me like this. You’ll even prefer it.”  
  
“Don’t be absurd.” Percy makes to bring his wand up again, but Cedric dashes it from his hand and pins him down with a little more force than is strictly necessary; brown eyes no longer so warm or friendly. There’s not a lot of wriggle room left, and Cedric kisses him on the lips before Percy manages to turn his face away. Cedric doesn’t kiss like Oliver; he doesn’t  _anything_  like Oliver, and that makes Percy want to be violently sick if he could.  
  
“You said it yourself. Oliver isn’t your boyfriend. You love him, but you can’t admit that. You like him, but don’t know what to do with it. You think of him as a puppy; eager, loyal, prone to tag along and leap ahead, but far too much bother for someone like you.”  
  
“I do not think that,” Percy tells him, but they both know it’s a lie.  
  
“You think he’s stupid, as well. Maybe not stupid. Average. Mediocre. Not the kind of scintillating conversationalist you’d demand in a partner. Not that you actually want anyone to be your equal, that’d be too threatening. You know me, Percy. And I know you. I’d make a far more enjoyable Oliver for you than the real thing.”  
  
Percy looks at his face, and flinches at the hunger there. “Why can’t you just let him go?”  
  
“Because I’m sick of watching the world pass by. A war’s being fought in my name and I can’t do a damn thing. People are dying and I can’t help. And you and Oliver squander every damned chance you have, and won’t see how lucky you are.”  
  
“Don’t make me do this, Cedric,” Percy warns, and when all he gets is a heated glare in response, Percy begins the incantation he was sure to learn by heart. Exorcism is an old ritual, bound by belief and power; the words wrap round his soul and echo into the ether – he does not need his wand. Cedric screams, feeling the ties than bind him to this world dissolving, and in an act of desperation, he dives into the one place in which he might find succour, the one place that is still open to him.  
  
Percy himself.  
  
*  
  
There is a kaleidoscope of colour. It surges around him, bright and glaring, word and picture and thought and memory. He sways on unsteady feet, and feels it comfort him. This is his storm, his sea. This is the sum of him, the alpha and the omega.  
  
“Welcome to your stream of consciousness,” chips in Cedric, sounding ever so dapper, and Percy turns to see him standing there, unfazed by the constantly changing landscape.  
  
“I’m going to fight you.”  
  
“I expect you rather will. Gryffindors always do love a good knees-up, from what I remember. Still,” Cedric cocks his head to one side, and walks towards him. On one side, a memory flickers of Percy’s fifth birthday, and the cake as he blew out the candles. On the other is a snapshot of Percy older and impeccably groomed accepting the position of Minister of Magic at a podium somewhere; it’s a dream yet to be realised. “Still, even if you stop me here, I could always turn up in Oliver again. Or your colleagues, or friends…or brothers,” he considers, and smiles brightly. “I never did have a sibling. Wonder what it’s like?”  
  
“Why are you  _doing_  this?” Percy begs to know, sounding quite at the end of his tether.  
  
“Because I had so much left to do!” Cedric yells at him.  
  
“Oh, is that the plan?” Percy sneers. “Come back triumphant from the gates of hell; the Once and Future Cedric, ready to win the war.”  
  
“Well, someone’s got to, haven’t they? And you’re not helping. You have a  _life_ , Percy, and you  _waste_  it. It’s easy, you know. So easy to just slip into someone and take over. That’s the glory of being dead, Percy; all the ways of this world don’t apply, no God nor angel can touch me now. I’m amazed all the ghosts in the world just don’t decide one day to return to the ranks of the living.”  
  
“Then why don’t you?” Percy yells back, and if he was at the end of his tether before, his tether has moved off without him and is currently living in a happy relationship in Basingstoke. Percy blazes at him, feeling taller and stronger than he ever has before, because he has to be right about something, if only this once. “If you ghosts are all so powerful, why don’t you just take over? I’ll  _tell_  you why,” he thunders, and brooks Cedric no leave, not here, not now. “Because there are higher laws and older magics than that of Death, and one of them is Life.”  
  
“If that’s so,” Cedric wonders innocuously, “if  _that’s_  so, then why don’t you find joy in  _your_  life, Percy?”  
  
Percy looks at him for a long, lingering moment before his face crumbles. “Because I’ve done nothing but fuck it up,” he admits, bitterly, and pulls his glasses from his face to rub them against his handkerchief.  
  
“Then perhaps it might be better if you let someone who recognises its value use it,” Cedric suggests, so faded and genuine and real that Percy can hardly gainsay him.  
  
Cedric is demonstrably broken; there is no give in that statement. Even Penny would agree it was an absolute, and since an absolute, it can be quantified.  
  
Percy has no doubt that it is true.  
  
Still, he cannot help but think of all the promise Cedric has left to offer, and all the chances Percy has for further and future mistakes.  
  
They gaze at each other; it might be an hour, a moment, or both – and possibly an eternity to boot. Time has no meaning here, as Percy well knows, having lived most of his life inside the sanctity of his own head. Cedric doesn’t speak again, but a voice wells in the space between them nonetheless, and it’s Percy’s own, fear of familiar fear and doubt.  
  
 _Even if I get through this, my family still hates me, and my job’s a mess. And Oliver’ll look at me one morning and realise he can do so much better…_  
  
The voice fades away, but Percy doesn’t need to hear it anymore. He knows it too well; the words are ingrained on his heart and in his soul. He’s crying, he realises all of a sudden; not because the voice speaks true, perhaps, but because he believes it, and that will mean it  _becomes_  true. He is his own prophecy. No matter how much he distances himself from that, no matter how much he achieves, all the thinking in the world, all the posturing and intellectualisation cannot save him from the simple fact he lacks faith in himself, and Cedric knows it too.  
  
There is no triumph in his eyes, and here, in this shoal and backwater of time, he can be himself, and squeeze Percy’s shoulder with a touch he hasn’t felt for years. Victory comes at a price, this victory no less than any other, and now he knows what he must do to take the life to come, and jump the vagaries of his erstwhile fate.  
  
“If I fall, will you catch me?” he asks tremulously, and licks his lips. Nerves shouldn’t matter here, but they are all his has left.  
  
“Course I will,” Cedric assures him, soft and gentle. “Used to be a Seeker once, didn’t I?”  
  
“Don’t aim for perfection,” he counsels his counterpart. “You always disappoint yourself.”  
  
Cedric nods solemnly, like he’s actually listening. Percy doesn’t know either way; doesn’t think it matters. Still, he hopes he is. Percy is a Gryffindor, and like many, possessed of a peculiar kind of bravery. He has gone against his House; he has gone against his friends. He has even gone against his family. The undiscovered country should hardly be a challenge.  
  
“You’ll take care of them, won’t you?” Percy asks, and he knows he’s saying yes.  
  
Cedric nods. There’s no point in crowing; no time for lies. “I’ll even apologise to your parents.”  
  
Percy manages a choked laugh: “I’m sure you will manage to charm them somehow.”  
  
“I’ll be the best son,” Cedric promises. “And a wonderful boyfriend.”  
  
“You won’t ever hurt him?” Strange question, considering Cedric’s earlier threat of possession, but Percy understands that sometimes harsh words can be spoken in anger, and Cedric has no need to inflict harm now.  
  
“Course not. I know just how to be grateful for every chance I get. I won’t waste it.”  
  
Cedric probably won’t. Not like Percy knows he has, and would. He has used all his chances, one, two, three, and even Percy Weasley knows that those who squander their lives will not be allowed more time upon the earth. Nor, does he think, they should.  
  
He falls.  
  
*  
  
The thing that wears Percy Weasley’s body like a cheap suit opens his eyes. Percy knows this because Percy can tell. Percy’s there, too; nestled at the back of what used to be his head. It’s warm and it’s safe and he doesn’t have to make any decisions any more, just give up volition and memory to those who would use them better.  
  
He knows that Cedric feels uncomfortable; but then it isn’t strictly Cedric anymore – anymore than he’s completely Percy. They’ve met in the middle, melded and broken and reformed. One body can only keep holding so much soul at a time. For Cedric, everything feels off; the height, the weight, the perspective, the centre of gravity. Still, with each passing minute, that cheap suit becomes a little more snug; the mind adjusts to the body. In a few days, it will be home, and what he was will be forgotten in favour of who he is; not that he knows, exactly. There is a name, and memories; and then there is another name, and some different memories. The two sets cannot be reconciled, so they are accepted as they are, and the soul takes care not to fracture too greatly.  
  
Percy knows this; it is true. There are no other options. He looks from his eyes, hears from his ears, and feels; but does not speak: it is not his mouth to use, any longer. At least he is not alone.  
  
Oliver is looking at him with a certain desperate concern, and it’s easy enough to reach out and cup his face with a hand. He marvels for a moment at the simplicity of touch, the reassurance of it, and the way Oliver brushes his face into his fingers.  
  
“Percy, is he - gone?” Oliver asks, and the question hangs between them.  
  
“Yes,” Cedric answers for him, and that’s his hand, and his name, now, not Percy’s. Possession is nine tenths of the law. “He won’t be bothering us any longer.”  
  
“Good,” Oliver murmurs, and then his expression turns to something altogether sly. “I want you all to myself.”  
  
The man snorts at that, and the touch becomes firm, possessive; he pulls Oliver to him and kisses him hungrily, eager for sensation and touch. The feeling there does not need to be feigned either; it feels right to kiss him. He is Percy; Percy has his Oliver; this is the natural state of the world. Besides, Oliver loves him, and love covers all sins. Any defence he needs from accusation or suspicion can be found in those strong arms; Oliver will be a living testament to his authenticity and refuse to consider any other possibility. He breaks the kiss to smile up at him, smacking his lips, and only then realises he’s been undressed and put to bed.  
  
“Percy!”  
  
“I’m tired of watching life go by, Oliver,” he says, quite honest. “I’m going to take what I want, now, and keep what I have.”  
  
In the back of his own head, Percy is almost gone. He feels himself dissolving, becoming one with the personality around him; just as Cedric has adapted, so must he, and this body is still his home.  
  
“Shall I be your kept boy, then?” Oliver teases, and leans in for another softer kiss.  
  
“Mmm. You make me happy,” Cedric announces, and Percy agrees with him. It feels freeing to admit such things; freer perhaps to reach around and slap Oliver’s arse a little.  
  
Oliver grins like he’s just won the World Cup, and blushes from ear to ear.  
  
He lets go; there isn’t Cedric anymore, or two people – just one. His name is, was, and always will be Percy, and if he ever had another one, he chooses not to remember it.  
  
“Did I sleep all night?” he enquires, curious.  
  
“Yes. Can I make you breakfast?” Oliver asks, and rises from the side of the bed where he’s been sitting.  
  
“Oh, yes, please,” replies Percy, and it fits, using that name. “But I have a lot to do.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes. I haven’t always made very wise choices, Oliver; I want to fix things, make them better.” He knows that; what he’s done is a great sin. There are rules, laws, ideals and he has broken them all. There is a wrong in the world, and it’s him. Still, he’s stubborn; as long as he makes it worth it, he figures the wrong won’t count at all.  
  
“You sound like a Hufflepuff,” Oliver remarks, stocky frame sauntering towards the bedroom door, and for a moment, Percy’s heart freezes in his chest before he realises it’s a joke. Panic. Curious sensation. He almost wants to feel it again.  
  
“There’s my family, as well as the Minister. I’m going to resign tomorrow, and he can transfer me to Bulgaria for all I bloody well care,” he remarks. “I refuse to be walked on any longer.”  
  
“Good for you, Perce,” Oliver calls back, and there’s soon the sound of bacon frying. “Oh, and Merry Christmas.”  
  
“Merry Christmas!” Percy replies, and it’s surely going to be a Happy New Year as well. “But tell me,” he wonders, pulling the blankets up to his chin, “there are some of my schoolmates I’d like to catch up with.” He can feel himself smiling; a bashful, slightly smirky smile that Amos Diggory would have recognised anywhere. It’s an instinctual smile; the body adjusts to the mind and some patterns cannot be undone. “Have you heard anything about Cho?”

*


End file.
